Abstract

We describe a technique for fabricating nanometer-scale gaps in Pt wires on insulating substrates, using individual single-walled carbon nanotubes as shadow masks during metal deposition. More than 80% of the devices display current-voltage dependencies characteristic of direct electron tunneling. Fits to the current-voltage data yield gap widths in the range for these devices, dimensions that are well suited for single-molecule transport measurements.

Received 05 December 2005Accepted 20 February 2006Published online 06 April 2006

Acknowledgments:

The authors thank Evgeni Gusev for the ALD growth and Philip Kim for access to the AFM. The authors also thank Henry Huang for helpful discussions about the nanotube transfer technique. This work was supported by the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Initiative of the National Science Foundation under NSF Award No. CHE-0117752, by the NSF Grant No. PHY-0103552, by the New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic Research (NYSTAR), and by a grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation.